


bang bang

by bloodrunsred



Series: R&M Two-Shots [3]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Morty Smith, Character Death, Child Murder, Dark, Disasters, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Gun Violence, Hurt Rick, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Medicine, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, POV Rick, Protective Rick, Sad, Sad Ending, Sad Morty Smith, Sad with a Happy Ending, Talking To Dead People, Triggers, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Waiting, not what that tag means but technically it applies shhh, see it as rickxmorty if u want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:49:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodrunsred/pseuds/bloodrunsred
Summary: Morty doesn't make it. How can Rick?





	1. living isn't kind,

**Author's Note:**

> vent fic, not very long unfortunately! i hope you cry.
> 
> trigger warning for death, guns, violence, etc.

They were running.

It was a regular Rick and Morty adventure, one that involved running and chasing, theft and cops. It was so normal that Rick wasn't even surprised when they were able to take out all of the aliens chasing them within a few minutes. He wasn't surprised that they were going to get away - not for the first time - with riches and a heavy burden on Morty's consciousness.

What was surprising, was the small choking sound Morty made as he stopped trying to catch up to Rick. The startled gasp, and the distinct  _thud_ of someone falling to their knees. Rick didn't want a distraction, and had a small scowl on his face, and an insult on his lips when he finally looked back.

Rick looked back, and Morty was barely looking forward.

Morty's mouth was open, his eyes wide in an unseeing stare. His hands were clutched to his ribs, but Rick could see the blood dripping between his fingers, staining the pavement. Morty looked down, mouth still agape as he struggled to find words, shocked into silence. And how many time had Rick wished for Morty to shut up? How many times had he told Morty so himself?

Now that he had silence - that wasn't really silence, as Morty shook, short whines tugged from his throat - he hated it more than he could ever express.

"Ri-" Morty tried, the word not forming properly through the blood and snot, fingers still pressing uselessly against his wound.

"Morty..." 

Morty looked up, eyes still wide and frightened. He saw Rick, though, Rick could tell. Rick dropped his ray gun - the people that had been chasing them were all dead anyway - and walked slow, staggering steps until he reached Morty. He pulled Morty's hands away, robot-like in the stiffness of his hands and movements. Morty choked, a sob bubbling up in his throat as Rick pushed and prodded. It was bad. Rick wasn't an optimist, not without half a million drugs in his system, and he knew that this was really, really bad. But Rick could fix it... He just needed some time, just needed something to make it better.

But this was worse than any other time - this was right between his ribs and, as Morty coughed onto the sidewalk, blood spattered everywhere, mixing with the dirt and grime. He needed to go, now, or Morty might not-

He might not make it. 

There was the nugget of information that knocked the breath from Rick's lungs, stealing the air from around him. The jewels didn't mean anything, the money didn't mean anything, but Morty was dying. 

Morty was dying and Rick was just  _standing_ there. He straightened, abruptly, dragging Morty into an alleyway despite his agonised cry, high pitched and desperate. It had to be safe for the while, it was the best he could do without fussing over him in a bed that wouldn't do either of them any favours.

He pulled out his portal-gun, finger on the trigger when Morty started crying in earnest; fingers no longer held to his middle, but instead clutching at Rick's coat. Bile gathered in the back of Rick's throat at the red, Morty-shaped stains as the kid tried to get a grip.

"D-don't," red dribbled down his chin, "p-please, Rick, d-don't leave me - I p-promise, I'm soh-sorry, please-"

Rick dropped his gun. He was face-to-face with a disgusting wall of alien brick and cement, and Morty was letting himself bleed out, not even putting pressure on the wound, just to make sure Rick wouldn't abandon him. Just to make sure he wouldn't be left, alone and scared, to die. Because he thought Rick was monster enough to leave him, get a new Morty, do anything but make sure he was safe.

Bile rose in his throat again, having nothing to do with Morty at all.

He picked up the gun, fast and sharp, and went through the portal in the wall. It closed as soon as he stepped through it, the space around him echoing Morty's pleas and apologies. Even as he stalked through the alien medicine and ingredients, shooting anyone who tried to stop him, he knew that sound would haunt him forever; the soundtrack of his eventual death and funeral, the bitter melody that accompanied him through the gates of hell.

There were screams and threats, but his ears were still ringing with the sound of Morty's voice.

He was sweating, throwing boxes and needles, and whatever else behind him until he found the serum he was looking for.

Bastards had stolen it from him at some point, and he's never been fucked to go get it back - he couldn't remember the ingredients he used, but he remembered it worked. That was all he needed. Portalling back to the alien city was hard.

His ears were filled with traffic and inane murmuring from people everywhere, and no noie at all from Morty, who was curled up by the trash. His hands were curled loosely over his belly-button, his lips pale and waxy. His eyes were empty, half-lidded and he wasn't moving. He was like the still of a picture, frozen in time as the world bustled along, light and free to be happy. 

They didn't deserve that.

"M-morty?" Rick said, voice trembling in a way he could never blame on alcohol. "Stop being dramatic. G-get up."

Morty usually listened on adventures. He wanted to make sure he was safe, and comfortable. He wanted to go home as quickly as possible. So it was impossible to say why Morty had decided to stop listening now. He  _needed_ the serum.

Rick kneeled, pulling the syringe from his pocket, and gently holding up Morty's still warm arm. The needle went in easy, Rick still being gentle because Morty hated needles. He hated them with a fiery passion, still nervous around them whenever Rick had to give him his vaccines for their trips to other planets. The needle shouldn't take too long to work, so Rick pulled Morty onto his lap, and waited.

He waited, in the mud and dirt, his eyes gazing straight ahead, staring at nothing. Morty's head lolled against his shoulder, his arms still near his stomach, and legs stretched out over Rick's. 

He waited.

The day flew on, quicker than a rabbit fleeing from the snapping teeth of a starving fox, and Morty grew colder. Rick worried, a little. Morty was never much of a help in the garage when he got sniffly, and he was always quick to complain to Rick. He would have to whip something up at home, he decided. 

The day got colder with Morty, who was still asleep when Rick wrapped his coat around his still form. He looked small, effortlessly fragile, and so, so sick. Rick closed his eyes for him, the glassy-bug stare probably caused by an alien infection Rick hadn't heard of before. Rick refused to look down, his rational and irrational minds competing for his attention. Logically, there was always an excuse. An explanation. Logically, Rick was the smartest being in the galaxy, and could cure Morty of anything.

Another part of him screamed too.

Be angry! Be upset! Feel something! It told him, wanting him to pull his eyes down from the wall and look, actually look. He couldn't, though. Not for anything in the world, would he look down. He had a feeling that he wouldn't want to see whatever it was that was setting it off. Rick always did what he wanted, and he just wanted to rest and let Morty get better.

Because he would get better. Rick wasn't a genius for nothing.

The bag he had left out on the street had been taken, he noticed absently. No surprise there. People, aliens, whoever and whatever, all living things were selfish. As a general rule. Even Morty could be selfish, sometimes, even if he highroaded Rick and tried to save people where he could. No-one could live without some from of selfishness compelling them to do whatever it took to stay alive.

Rick checked his watch. A few hours had passed.

"Y-you're really getting heavy there, Morty," he whispered, "finally growing up on your old man."

Morty didn't respond.

But Rick waited. 


	2. but dying hurts so much worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> waddup im jared im 19 and i never fuckin learned how to read

The thing about dying was that Rick hadn't created a cure for it yet.

Not that it mattered. If he died, it would be beautiful. Spectacular. The kind of death that circled newspapers, that ended and started wars, that had people weeping for joy and grief. He might go out in a blaze of gunfire, a hail of bullets, or some kind of disgusting disease that he fought until the very end. 

Or he could blow his brains out in an undisclosed location and let everyone wonder what had happened to him while his corpse rotted, alone and forgotten. Options were important, after all. 

In any case, the simple fact that he couldn't cure death was never appeased by the even more simple fact that no-one else could either. In fact, that probably made it worse for him, because Rick Sanchez was never one to be defined by the masses. There was no person ever quite like him--not even himself, from all of their various dimensions. He was the Rogue Rick, the outlier, the fucking scapegoat of every pig-Rick trapped in the system.

Death couldn't slow him. Death couldn't slow Morty either. Not until Rick said it could.

But Morty was still, his eyes glazed over like frost on a window, his body still and stiff from where Rick had dragged him onto his lap. The needle had been discarded somewhere else, but Rick had already checked; empty. He hadn't forgotten to give Morty it, he hadn't not given him enough, it just... didn't work. It was meant to work, and if it didn't, then it was because...

"I'm so sorry," Rick said, throwing dignity aside for the dead child in his arms. "I--fuck. Fuck, I'm so sorry, Morty, I am."

The kid was still wrapped in his labcoat, his ratty old labcoat that now served no other purpose than to try and warm a boy stolen by death, that he would have to burn after this because there's blood on it, dry and crumbling. Tears pricked at his eyes, and he still couldn't look down. He couldn't look at Morty, who had trusted him ( _until he thought that Rick would abandon him to die alone_ ) to protect him. He had made this, he had made Morty, he had built him up and had torn him down again and again, until this was all that was left.

Broken china, dusty and useless on someone's shelf. Morty, body torn and broken, gathering dirt and blood, dead. 

He had a coupon. He had told himself that he would use it, he had told himself that Morty was useless, and worthless, and he had told Morty that too. Serves him fucking right that he had been wrong all along. He had joked about the universe, made fun of the rules of existence before smashing them into oblivion, and now this was the universe's final laugh at him.

Rick was a funny guy. He liked making jokes. It was almost beautiful that something he had truly believed, something he had really known, had wound up being nothing more than make-believe. Morty didn't end up being worthless, or a toy to play with, or something to use. He had ended up being a scared, small kid, and Rick had failed him more than he had ever failed Beth.

He had left Beth and Diane to protect them.

He dared to look down at Morty, let the tears slip down his cheeks to splatter on Morty's pale cheek.  _This was the destruction he caused._

Because, ultimately, Rick was selfish. He was disgusting. He had shot the kid, broken his bones, pushed him down stairs, sold him, left him, came back, all to convince himself that Morty really was nothing beneath his heel, something to be squashed by the universe while Rick escaped like a damned  _cucaracha._ When he had first come back, he had told himself that there was no getting attached this time. That if it came down to choosing between himself and Morty, he would choose himself and feel guilty for the four hours it would take to register for a new one. 

This wasn't what he had wanted. 

"Morty, I-I'm a fucking piece of shit, no wonder why you--why you thought I was going to leave you, but I..." He couldn't say it, he couldn't fucking say it. "I love you, Morty, fucking hell. I didn't--I didn't know I did, I didn't think, but I do. And you never even fucking--you never even fucking knew. I didn't let you, but--but _te necesito, lo siento, lo siento..._ "

_A beber y a tragar, que el mundo se va a acabar._

_Here's to drinking and swallowing, for the world will end._

What a fucking quote to live by. Rick was tempted to reach for his flask, but it was buried in his labcoat's inner pocket, laying directly over Morty's still heart. He pulled Morty up closer, burying his nose in the dirty hair.

He waited. For something.

Eventually, wishing for his flask turned into wanting, and the wanting turned into a burning need that threatened to consume him if he didn't twist his arm to pull it out from where it was cradled in the crease where Morty's arm met his chest. Rick had barely ever denied himself a drink in his life, so he did it mechanically. His fingers brushed against Morty's chest, feeling the soft pulsing of his heart as he reached into-

No.  _No._

 

But the colour had drained from Morty's cheeks! But it had been hours! But-

The fucking serum. The fucking serum hadn't failed to work, it had put Morty in stasis, it had slowed his heart down and shut down all non-essential functions. It was meant to be a be-all or end-all cure, and it had stopped the damage as much as it could. It had done it,  _he_ had done it. 

And he could have killed Morty, because he had wallowed in denial for as long as he could, because he was too wracked by grief to move and feel Morty's light breathing, to try and do more. He should have taken him to the garage immediately, he should have had him on the emergency operating table before the serum stopped helping Morty's heart pump the minimal amount of blood around his body to keep him alive.

And Morty was _alive_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit cliche i feel, but it's just some refreshing comfort and happiness to ease whatever struggles you've been going through! remember to release the tension from your shoulders, and relax your forehead, and release the breath you're holding by accident. taking care of yourself is important :)
> 
> some of you might know that i'm writing an original piece at the moment, which is why this took so long! i'm not going to lie, it's kind of taking precedent in my writing time, but i haven't forgotten about my other works!!

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a review, they make me really happy - random keyboard smash, different languages, run-on sentences, i love them all!


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